For some time now the embedded press in Ottawa has been sucking and whining about not having sufficient access to the Prime Minister. The complaints range from there not being enough press scrums to cherry picking on the part of the PMO as to which reporters get to ask questions. While these complaints may well be legitimate, who can honestly blame Stephen Harper for not cuddling with the media?
after all, wasn't it the Ottawa media that took dictation from the Liberals, helping them remain in power long after their "best before" date? Does the word "scary" ring a bell? If I were Stephen Harper, I don't know if I would trust the media either, given the fact that they have a long history of actively attempting to scuttle the Conservatives' ambitions.
If one examines the commentary offered by the Ottawa media, often disguised as news, I am surprised that Mr. Harper is even talking to any of them. For years Canada's media have successfully portrayed Conservatives as brainless, knuckle-dragging, Neanderthal racist morons who would keep women barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen. So now the media are reaping their harvest of falsehoods and mistrust.
The Harper Conservatives were elected to a minority government as a reaction to the odious and scandal-plagued Liberal entitlement machine, no thanks to the media, who I think would be much happier with a Liberal Prime Minister, anyway. It was only since the Conservatives have been able to put some of their ideas into legislation that their popularity with the electorate at large has grown, again, no thanks to the media.
The media in Canada has a history of making themselves part of the story, which is why a liberal bias is not seen as a liberal bias, while a conservative bias is often perceived as a quasi-subversive bent.
The media soundly criticized Stephen Harper for his scuttling the idea of an appointments Commission, after an opposition cabal led by the NDP scuttled Gwyn Morgan, Mr. Harper's nominee for the post. The Parliamentary media were having a field day with that story, as it became reminiscent of old times, having a Conservative nominee outed for being, well conservative.
On the CBC's web site John Gray, former Ottawa Chief for the Globe and Mail, offers a prime bit of reporting that brilliantly illustrates why Harper doesn't want much to do with the Ottawa media. Writing about the brouhaha following the committee's rejection of Morgan, Gray wrote:
"What was not so well known, except perhaps to insiders like Harper, was that Morgan came with a parcel of political convictions that puts him on the very conservative side of the Conservative party. and he expressed those views in a manner that is profoundly partisan.
"Morgan's speech to the Fraser Institute last December made him something of a poster boy of the right. He began by attacking unions as the scourge of business, in particular for driving the poor leaders of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler to their knees. and he implied that unions are at once responsible for spiralling (sic) public-sector costs and low-quality public-sector services.
"He fretted about violence in several immigrant communities among people who, he said, "come from countries where the culture is dominated by violence and lawlessness." He took a ritual bash at gun control and then complained that Quebec separatists get federal money for their election campaigns, and that their leader is allowed to participate in the national leaders debate.
"He complained also about the equalization program that provides public money for basic services to Canada's poorer provinces — "creating dependencies" — and noted that Quebec has for decades received the largest amount of equalization."
Yes, and...? What Morgan said to the Fraser Institute was a valid and accurate criticism of Canadian government policy, but because it broke with the accepted politically correct orthodoxy, Morgan was deemed "unacceptable" by the extreme leftists sitting on that Parliamentary committee. and for some reason, not many of the Ottawa media thought Harper was right in scrapping the idea of an appointments commissioner altogether.
If you're looking for genuine democratic reform in Canada's Parliament, then it can't be business as usual, meaning that it's okay to assassinate the character of someone with whom you disagree. Harper did the right thing in putting the idea of an appointments commissioner on hold. The Ottawa media was dead wrong in hammering Harper for doing so. and that's just one example of why Harper is well advised to avoid them like the plague.
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